Weight loss jabs: What happens when you stop taking them

Weight-loss jabs: What happens when you stop? "It's like a switch that goes on and you're instantly starving." Ellen and Tanya have both lost weight using GLP-1s but have had very different experiences when it comes to stopping the medication Tanya Hall has tried to stop taking weight loss medication multiple times. But every time she stops the injections, the food noise comes back. Loudly. Weight loss jabs, or GLP-1s, have done for many what diets could never do. That constant background hum, telling them to eat even when they are full, has been turned off. The drugs have given those who never thought they could lose weight a new body shape, a new outlook and in many cases, a completely different life. But you can't continue taking them forever, can you? Or can you? Well, that's one of the issues, no-one quite knows. They are new drugs - which mimic GLP-1, a natural hormone that regulates hunger - and the potential side effects from using them in the long term are only just beginning to emerge. And with an estimated 1.5 million people in the UK paying for the injections privately, staying on them for a long time is not a cheap endeavour. So what happens when you try to stop? Two women, with two very different stories but the same goal - to lose weight and keep it off - tell us what it's been like for them. "It was like something opened up in my mind and said: 'Eat everything, go on, you deserve it because you haven't eaten anything for so long'." Tanya, a sales manager for a large fitness company, first started taking Wegovy to prove a point. She was overweight, felt like an "imposter" and thought her opinion was not valued by her industry because of her size. Would she be taken more seriously if she were slimmer? Ultimately, she says her suspicions were proved right. After she started using the jabs, people would come up to her and congratulate her on her weight loss. She felt she was treated with more respect. However, during the first few months of the treatment, Tanya struggled to sleep, felt sick all the time, had headaches and even started to lose her hair, which might not be directly due to the drug but is a potential side effect of rapid weight loss. "My hair was falling out in clumps," she recalls. But in terms of weight, she was getting the results she'd hoped for. "I'd lost about three and a half stone." Now, more than 18 months down the line, what started as a bit of an experiment has turned into a complete life change. She's lost six stone (38kg) and she's tried to come off Wegovy several times. But each time, within just a few days, she says she eats so much food she's left "completely horrified". Should she stay on the medication, and live with all the side effects that come with it, or jump...

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